Dell asked for
customer input in February on the company's IdeaStorm web site. More
than 100,000 responses were submitted to Dell, with more than 70 percent of
respondents wanting some sort of pre-installed Linux product from Dell.

It may also take Dell a long time to get potential support issues sorted out
before the Dell products enter the PC and workstation markets. Linux
users are now curious to see which version(s) of Linux will be installed on
future products. Users are more interested in kernel level and open
driver support instead of particular Linux distributions, according to Dell.

Dell already has working relationships with Novell and Red Hat, both of which
create popular Linux operating systems. But other popular Linux
alternatives include Ubuntu, Slackware, Debian and Lindows.

The company plans on asking for more user input regarding Linux and open source
technologies. Dell has had to rethink business plans due to increased
competition with competitors such as Hewlett-Packard.

"We basically took a look at this situation and said, this is bullshit." -- Newegg Chief Legal Officer Lee Cheng's take on patent troll Soverain